144 CONFESSIONS OF A BEACHCOMBER 



The stone fish resembles in character and habits the 

 death adder. Its disposition is pacific, it has no froward- 

 ness of temper ; is never willing to obtrude itself on notice, 

 trusting to immobility and to its similitude to the grey rocks 

 and mud and brown alga to escape detection. Unless it 

 is actually handled or inadvertently- trodden upon, it is as 

 innocent and as harmless as a canary. Why then should 

 it be furnished with such dreadful weapons of offence ? A 

 full dozen of the keenest of spines, all in a row, extend 

 from the depression at the back of the head towards the 

 tail, each spine hidden in a jagged and uneven fringe, 

 which, when the fish is in its natural element, can scarcely 

 be distinguished from seaweed. Not until the warty ghoul 

 acquires the sagacity which accompanies ripe age and ex- 

 perience, does it encourage deceptive plumes of innocent algae 

 to anchor themselves to its back. Then it is that detection 

 is beyond ordinary skill, and its presence fraught with danger. 

 In a specimen 8 inches long, the first spine, counting from 

 the head, can be exposed half an inch, the second and chief 

 fully three-quarters, and the remainder graduate from half 

 to a quarter of an inch. Each spine — clear opal blue — is 

 surrounded by a sac of colourless liquid (presumed to con- 

 tain the poisonous element), which squirts out as the spine 

 is unsheathed. On the sides, and in lesser numbers on 

 the belly, are irregular rows of miniature craters which on 

 being depressed eject, to a distance of a foot or more, a 

 liquid resembling in colour milk with a tinge of lavender. 

 Fast on the points of a spear the fish gives an occasional 

 and violent spasmodic jerk, when the prettily tinted liquid 

 is ejected from all the little cones. After a pause, during 

 which it seems to concentrate its energies, there is another 

 and another twitch, each the means of sprinkling broad- 

 cast what is said to be a corrosive liquid, almost as virulent 

 as vitriol. From almost any part of the body this liquid 

 exudes or can be expelled. 



With its upturned cavernous mouth (interiorly a for- 

 bidding sickly green), its spines, its cones, its eruptions, its 

 ejecta, its great fan-shaped pectoral fins, and its deformities 



